Have you ever been
afraid
to
talk about
your life
as if
if you did
people might
use it
against you?

I have fled from this profound
sense of loneliness my entire life—

Nothing has ever felt right, good or
Safe. I have hardly found another person
that seems to speak the same language,
Am I to be a single aldis lamp in the night
flashing across the great sea with
nothing but the stars to

twinkle back at

Me.

all i've wanted is to sleep

to tip over and land
soak in distilled whiskey
like arthropods preserved
in amber, except me
lost in an extended
trance, dissolving
into resins, ointments
oils--

i don't want to feel trapped
i fear me leaving more
than anything else,
me leaving to beat
the traffic, catch the
train, board the bus
to Abilene
a roundtrip
god I'm
tired of tryin'
so
hard.

i like to remember that
waves still form in part
due to ocean basins

that my intuition
skims along the floors
and only reverberates
all that it finds to the top,

so maybe if I better
understood the reasoning
the seat of my heart, the crux
of why I am, this turbulence
would come a little easier,

the combers,  though heavy
and unyielding--predictable,
navigable, waters I can
sail on.

truth is
i'd prolly
still pull your
coat strings, kiss
you if you showed
up but we both know
you won't,

push off your hat
tell me you don't want
to hear my heartbeat

tell me you don't
want that.

have you ever felt your body?


have you ever felt your body?
a mellow clay mold sitting in the
bathroom, filled with pops and
quick ticks, i've often searched my
veins for pains, and they manifest
when I do, so I wonder--

about that.


and when I think about it too much
my belly starts to buzz and my chest
thickens with a warm afterglow, yeast
rising in a far clavicle, in my kidneys
and spleen--when I focus on the sounds
I can hear the pin drop of my soul, a tiny
bead on a string, a group of pink seashells
on Newton's cradle in a room shadowed in
broken evening, clicking against each other
softly, a lilliputian clock keeping time from
another century--

lost in twilight, in dawn, skipping the day,
my spirit always sinks into the everglades
a flighty anachronism, a homing pigeon
caught in telephone wires, beneath bus
wheels and modern dating--

ah,

out there?
hello?
forward message.  
I am here.

i
keep
hoping
you'll
talk
to
me
first


                     you're
                     just
                     a
                    ghost


what
about
endings
do
I
not
understand
?


                          how
                          done
                          with
                          me
                          are
                          you?


i
made
everything
abundantly
clear
to
everyone
but
myself.

We sat on the fallen tree by
the stream, behind the library guarded
by wisdom, I guess it was
a funny situation but I told you
straight faced that she was
there before me as if it were 6am
holiday shopping and she'd bought you
first

when does your family stop being
your family, when you decided they
don't need to know your whereabouts
or who you're kissin',
when mama interferred
for the last time and you
drove the lonely 12 minutes
from his house to yours wishing
you made more sense, wishing
you didn't hurt so much over
every **** thing, so you're
tellin' god no more ultimatums
no more dark drives where you're
cursin and profanin his name

but when do you draw the line
when their home ain't your own
and your house big as empty feels
always warm but filled with you
and you're always far too much
too much thought, too much
water, not enough wood
he says you immediately told
your mom and i did, which got
me thinkin' about whether families
are comprised of just one, and if
I could be my own, if you need
two, if a dog counts
if there are rules
or just a hand on my back
if God's a good lead then
i'm pushing right back

I've always fallen in love in autumn
always to fall apart early spring--
call me deciduous, the abscission just happens,
I've considered my winter coats, my shields,
the neat places I've tucked myself away

were we to overwinter?
to hibernate until further notice?
the titles were frightening, impending and
ominous, each one a textbook on subjects
we had no knowledge of, dark leatherback novels
featuring versions of ourselves we never meant
to be or never knew we could --

wrapped in sleeping bags and white down duvets
best during the winter becase we were both
raging fires, flames licking at eachothers doors
stopping short of our naked toes, put out by the
here and there snow, but sometimes
we were embers, pulsing stones of coal
settling, wishing, waiting, kissing wounds
breathing secrets over bruises--

but migration comes suddenly,
i've been in and out dormant for years
a sputtering volcano rumbling and groaning--

were we to overwinter?
I lost the dream woke with a start,
the caldera gave way and sunk in
terrified I'd take you with,
but travelers don't pause for eruptions
or make their way through magma --

and volcanos don't plead
   for them to
       stay
       were we to    
                overwinter?

I promised myself I wouldn't give in
my resolve to be stronger than myself turned out
to be null, for one, because it almost didn't make sense in the first place

but there we were, shuffling about on the sheets like we'd never
touched before (or never bothered to touch before) which is entirely untrue
because we used to quite frequently

and I watched intently as your eyebrows caved, mouth fell open
but you refused to make any noise

So,
yes,
I squeezed it out of you.

the construction
outside my bedroom window
finally stopped--a groaning
heaviness that rattled my
insides, made me feel like
there was air missin'--
a sound of normal i'd
lost

i turned over in bed
sure as the moon
that it was sunday
up at the dried sycamore seeds
still clinging to the tree
climbing the north facing
wall, twizzling down
against the double paned window

i imagine once all of this is over
that's what it will be like--
a sound of normal i'd
forgotten.

pinky promise

we've forgotten our mortality
our impulse to smile at *blooms
we've stared at childhood photographs
and wondered why we look so angry

the art of fault and denial are synonymous
we've stopped speaking in hopes that silence really does
speak volumes,
our bodies could fell, cracked down like oak and our voices
remain like cocoons, papery whispers swathed in duff,
still breathlessly prating, foolish and juvenile.

which goes to say-- our thoughts
far procede the vessel, would last beyond our
deaths and ancestry--

i once spoke about anger being passed down
through the blood of irishmen - who long held the
propensity to bar fight and brawl
long standing feuds poured from mouth to mouth
downriver, across the gap, occasionally skipping a generation
the woes of our fathers are dead languages that we keep--
tongues we deliver on our own

we lash out and are our mothers
or laugh and see our fathers
never quite our own until burgeoning, and not even that --
not all of us bloom, some of us violently tear away
break the root and toss ourselves among the rocks
wilted but brilliantly colored  
       desperate to
                   learn how to speak.

i'm finally sleeping through the night--

and for a couple days I'll wake up and
not think of you at all--
people say your name and it sounds like an old prayer
each syllable a funny amen

I've been shadowboxing myself, my old friend
i've been been relearning to to be comfortable with silence in the end
neither of us kept our promises but that's no unforgivable sin

i've considered a hundred thank yous
all lined up  on the lawn, white pickets to make a nice fence
and sometimes I've stood in my kitchen and stared at the mugs
whispered i don't know myself but that's why
i left, wasn't it?

i'll admit to being jealous of your happiness,
i've only so many faces to keep, and i only want one

it's taken a while to own the fault,
i see  every shameful thing and dust off the
way i used to hold myself

I'm finally sleeping through the night
a little bit heavy, no less able to dream
and i hear part of you like i might
the soft hurt i left in your bed
so, please forgive me
when you get the chance.


please forgive me
when you get the chance.

I hate you because
I meekly sought
your comfort in
the theater, telling
you I still loved him
and you went and
fell in love with him
too

those wings on your
back weren't meant to
keep you up forever--
even eagles land
clouds dissipate
and great travelers
come down off the
mountains.

**** near lost
it all tryin' to be
perfect, upped
my tolerance for
whiskey and now
I just use it when
i'm trying to think
about anything but
you, but i'll be dancin'
with some guy named
Mike and all i can see
is your face reflected
in the windows of
an Antlers hotel
'cause i think that
was the last morning
we were okay.

but lookin' back on it,
i kinda ruined it with a
kiss, we started fighting
when I started fallin' thinking
we needed to be more
but then you said you
loved me and
it wasn't just
me
anymore.

either way--
if there's no use crying
over spilled milk i've
been crying for weeks and
that milk's done and gone
you're spittin venom
and i'm soaking it
up with a dish rag
hopin' it'll turn to
water.

he sat out on the back
porch with the dog and
tugged on her collar.

it ain't your fault for doing
what you know

he said quietly, a swig of
water afterwards. and the
sun went down real slow
like behind the trees casting
purple shadows on his
carhartt boots

she'll not mistake your
nature, she knows what
you are and she loves you,

he said in hushed tones
as she moved through
the kitchen.

she loves you.

could I speak wonders like you
something out of Perrault's stories
could there be diamonds?